Chatti Pathiri/Kerala Sweet Lasagna/Crepes Layered With Sweet Filling

 Chatti Pathiri is a layered pastry made in Malabar region of Kerala. You can make both sweet and savoury version, this dish is quite similar like Italian Lasagna. Instead of paste, pancakes made with flour or pastry sheets prepared with all purpose flour are used. You can make any filling but somehow till know i crossed only non vegetarian filling, as the savoury ones are made traditionally with meat filling as like our samosas or puffs. Thank god Srivalli suggested us this sweet chatti pathiri for our this month's Indian Cooking Challenge,a monthly event where we cook dishes from various regions of India.

I skipped last month's challenge, coz of the sprouts eventhough i'll be making soon. But this time i dont want to miss as i seriously want to make these chatti pathiris since a long. For the today's sweet chatti pathiri, we went for a sweet filling with coconut,black sesame seeds,poppy seeds and nuts. Trust me this sweet chatti pathiri are just simply out of the world. The most important ingredient to enhance the authenticity of this dish is white poppy seeds, dont forget to add or skip them. These seeds are used extensively in Malabar cuisine. Chatti Pathiris are made during festivals, or either during a wedding event or else especially for Iftar. If you have a sweet tooth, these sweetened chatti pathiri will definitely satisfy your sweet tooth.

Recipe Source: Anitha Menon
For Pathiris:
1cup All purpose flour
1/3 cup warm water
1 tbsp vegetable oil
salt to taste

For Filling:
1/2tin Sweetened condensed milk
4tbsp black sesame seeds
7tbsp  Grated coconut
3tbsp Raisins
3tbsp Cashew nuts(Chopped finely)
3tbsp Almonds (chopped finely)
4tbsp Poppy seeds
3tbsp Cardamom powder

For coating:
1+1/2 cups Coconut milk (store bought)
1tbsp Cardamom powder
4tbsp Powdered sugar
2tsp Ghee

For Pathiris:
Mix the flour with water, oil and salt and knead into a dough like that of chappati.

Keep it covered for half an hour.

Divide the dough into 7-8 equal portions.

Using a roller pin, roll it out into paper-thin chappaties on a dusted flour board.

Heat a griddle and cook the chappatis/round flat bread lightly on a tawa.

Keep them aside.You should be able to get 7-8 chappathis with this amount.

For filling:
Heat a Large frying pan.Add ghee and saute raisins, cashew nuts, poppy seeds, almonds, sesame seeds till seem a little golden brown .

Then saute grated coconut along with cardamom powder until they start to change the colour slightly.

Mix the above with half a tin of condensed milk and keep aside, check the level of sweetness.

Add more condensed milk if required.

For coating and assembling:
Add to the coconut milk, cardamom powder and powdered sugar and keep aside.

Take a non-stick round baking pan,spread couple of tsps oil or ghee / clarified butter all around the pan

Keep one pathiri/flat bread as the first layer.

Using a spoon sprinkle the nut mix filling on top of the pathiri/flat bread.

Dip the second chappathi/flat bread in the coconut milk mixture, coat well and place it on top of the filling.

Sprinkle the condensed milk -nut mixture again and repeat this until all the pathiris, the coconut milk mix and the nut mixture is used up and pathiri being the top layer.

Pour the remaining coconut milk mixture generouly on top of pathiri , so that it drains on all the gaps on sides and form a thin layer on top.

This is important to keep the Chatti Pathiri moist. If you run out of the coconut milk mixture after coating, make more and mix with sufficient sugar and cardamom and pour on top.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Bake in oven for about 15 minutes or until the top of pathiri turns golden.

After it cooled down a little, drizzled it with some more condensed milk and decorated it with dessicated coconut.

Notes:
Alternately u can cook it on a stove top in a non stick deep skillet or deep pan.

You have to place it at a very low flame and flip it carefully to cook on the other side. The flipping becomes a bit easy when the lowest layer of flat bread/pathiri is a little hard.

When both the sides have cooked well, it is easy to slide it out of the pan into the serving plate.

You can add cherries or fruits to decorate the top of the chatti pathiri,but i skipped it and used just dessicated coconut.